The Relations between Thaksin Shinawatra’s Policies and Red-shirt Movement: Looking the Red-shirt Movement in Mahasarakham through Cognitive Mapping

Abstract

One of the effects of the 2006 coup d'état were the uprising of the Red-Shirts and political conflicts, showing through the polarised politics in Thailand. Also, the Red-Shirts were considered to be the main political supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra. The study, therefore, aimed at investigating the factors leading to being the Red-Shirts and the relations between Thaksin Shinawatra’s policies and the Red-shirt movement, focusing on the case study of the 3 Red-Shirts’ villages in Mahasarakham province. The study employed mixed methods by using 310 questionnaires for the quantitative method and in-depth interviews of the 25 Red-Shirts for the qualitative method. The data gained was, then, analysed by SPSS program and cognitive mapping respectively. The study showed that the factors leading to being the Red-Shirts were Thaksin Shinawatra’s policies, the 2006 coup d'état and the popularity of Thaksin. It was moreover found that Thaksin Shinawatra’s policies could literally improve the Red-Shirts’ quality of life. The policies supporting the claim were the 30 Baht Health Care Scheme and the Farmers’ Debt Repayment Policy. Moreover, Red-shirts have no relationship with sex, age, marital status, education level, career and income of the sample. This is different from the previous study, which aimed to identify whether red-shirts had a factor in their income, occupation and education level.